"It is now a matter of creating more transparency in Industry 4.0 and clearing up the jungle of terms," said Gunther Koschnick, Managing Director of the ZVEI Automation Association, at its SPS IPC Drives press conference. Just in time for the trade fair, the ZVEI has therefore published a guideline for general and manufacturer-independent Industry 4.0 product criteria developed together with the Industry 4.0 platform. "This will create more security in the market," says Koschnick.

The criteria in the guide are based on RAMI 4.0 and the Industry 4.0 component. "The criteria help suppliers in the market to decide which products can already be labeled as Industry 4.0-capable," explained Roland Bent, board member of the ZVEI Automation Association and Managing Director at Phoenix Contact. "At the same time, companies can use the criteria as a guide for product development. Overall, this ensures greater transparency and security in the market."

The criteria include, firstly, basic functions that are the same regardless of the device; secondly, Industry 4.0 semantics as a common Industry 4.0 language; thirdly, Industry 4.0 communication that can map the new services; fourthly, identification as the unique labeling of physical objects and data. Last but not least, fifthly, there is the security dimension.

Open source project 'openAAS'

Bent also considers the open source project 'openAAS' (Asset Administration Shell), which the association is carrying out together with the Chair of Process Control Technology at RWTH Aachen University, to be one of ZVEI's most important current projects. "On the open Internet platform github.com, interested parties can obtain information at any time and join in immediately," emphasized Bent. The aim of 'openAAS' is to build a bridge between the ZVEI's conceptual work on architecture models - RAMI 4.0 (DIN Spec 91345) and Industry 4.0 components - and the practical implementation of Industry 4.0 in companies' development departments. Over a period of two years, a demonstrable reference solution for the administration shell with access services is to be developed. "Communication between Industry 4.0 components, i.e. between assets whose virtual image is stored in an asset administration shell, is defined in the 'openAAS' project," explained Bent. A plugfest is planned for February 21, 2017 in Frankfurt to promote the expansion and application of 'openAAS'.

In addition to Industry 4.0, the ZVEI considers energy efficiency in drive systems to be an important topic. "Energy efficiency belongs in the complete drive system2, said Karl-Peter Simon, Chairman of the ZVEI Electrical Drives Division and Managing Director of Bauer Gear Motor. "The new EN 50598 standard focuses precisely on this and no longer looks at individual components, but is open to the entire drive system." The implementation of the European standard EN 50598 in the international IEC standard 61800-9 also highlights the importance of the system approach. Against this background, the ZVEI is presenting a manufacturer-independent online calculation tool at the trade fair for easy implementation of the standard.

The economic situation in the German automation industry has weakened significantly compared to the previous year: in the first nine months of 2016, the industry achieved sales of EUR 37.2 billion, which corresponds to growth of 2.6%. Incoming orders rose by 1.5%. "That is far less than we were able to report to you a year ago: Back then, we were talking about 7.8% growth in incoming orders in the first nine months of 2015," Bent noted. For 2017, he expects growth of 3% to 6% in factory automation and 0% to 3% in process automation.